


The Bound

by Niki



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Presumed character death, Soulmates, soulbond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 05:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2055003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There are stories among the Dalish about a bond between lovers so strong it can even transcend death.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [serenbach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenbach/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy your story! I loved writing it for you:)
> 
> Thanks to N for beta.
> 
> Some dialogue straight from the game.

There wasn't a time when Tamlen wasn't there. When Lyna opened her eyes to the world for the first time among the trees, he was there. When she learned to walk he held her hand. When she learned to run he struggled to keep up with her. When she learned to fence he helped her practice. When she hid from the adults teaching her, he was hiding with her. When she practised archery, he was there to mock her failures. 

When he fell, she helped him up. When she tripped, he helped steady her. When he laughed, it was usually because of her. When she laughed, he never failed to join her. He was the first to see her finished Vallaslin, even before Ashalle, even though she had been like a parent to her. 

It was like they could almost hear each other think, so in tune were they – they moved in sync like two parts of a whole.

Everyone knew to expect them to be together where ever they were. They were TamlenLyna or LynaTamlen to anyone who shouted to find either one. Even in a close knit group that the clan was, they were special. 

And everyone but them knew what it meant. 

\- - -

Maybe everyone thought them as siblings when they were little, maybe the were just like really close friends when they grew up, but the elders in the clan knew the legends, and they knew their closeness was closer than friends, deeper than siblings, and awaited the day the two would realise it. 

Even the younger elves who did not believe the legends knew the two were obvious and oblivious – they were in love, they were mated like two halla, for life, except...

Tamlen and Lyna were just Tamlen and Lyna, Lyna and Tamlen. Always there for each other, always together. So much, and nothing more. To suggest anything more was ridiculous, was outrageous, was...

Was painful, because obviously Tamlen didn't think of Lyna that way, would rather trade smiles with Merrill who didn't even notice, would always only see Lyna as a playmate, agemate, sister almost. 

He would never seek to kiss her, hold her hand for any other purpose than practicality, would not even think to exchange promises under moonlight with her. Would never love her as anything but a friend. 

Lyna didn't even know when she realised she didn't love him as a brother, as a friend, as an agemate, as a clan member. Maybe it was always there, and only the added aspect of physical desire as they grew older was what told her what it really was. 

She loved him like the women of legend loved their spouses, how the halla loved their mates, how her parents were told to have loved each other. She knew she'd never look at any other man the way she looked at him, not even if she saw all the wonders of the outside world, no elf, or shemlen or dwarf could ever be to her as he was. 

And to him she was just a child he saw grow up, just a playmate, someone to practise fighting with, someone to run with in the woods, someone to drag him into trouble. 

But for her he was the sun and the stars and the dew on the leaves in the morning.

\- - - 

There were no omens in her dreams to warn Lyna what the day would bring. She was supposed to help Master Ilen but when Tamlen suggested the woods she followed him without hesitation, even to the mysterious ruins the scared shemlen told them about. 

She was as excited about them as Tamlen, as eager to explore them, as awed by everything they saw. Nothing, not even the strange creatures they encountered warned her that it would end badly, would be the worst day of her life.

Because suddenly Tamlen wasn't by her side anymore. 

\- - -

She hoped, to the end, that she and Merrill and Fenarel would find him, sick like she was, even if she wouldn't have wished the pain she was still feeling on him for anything, that would still be better than death. And even finding his corpse would have been acceptable – anything but the gnawing doubt and feeling of wrongness of not knowing his fate. 

When they had to come back without even his body to return to the clan so they would have something to bury, so that they could provide him with the oak staff and the cedar branch to aid with his journey to the Beyond, she feared the feeling of wrongness would never pass. 

But when they sang the rituals lead by Paivel, calling on the Creators to guide him – or just to protect him in case he wasn't dead, as Paivel explained – it did help. She prayed for Falon'Din whose statue they had seen in the ruins especially, to guide Tamlen, so that he wouldn't be alone in death as he had never been in life. And if she knew that the clan was singing to her as well, wishing her farewell and praying for protection for her... well, it did not feel wrong to share that last thing with Tamlen.

\- - -

Lyna waited for the pain to go away but as the days passed she realised it wasn't the taint. It was the loss of her other side that made her gasp for breath, the absence of the reassuring presence that had always been there that made her ache. 

Alistair helped. Alistair was what Tamlen should have been – a brother, a friend, someone to laugh with, someone to share secrets with by the firelight, someone to train and fight with. He told her of his life as a Templar and shared some tricks with her, she told him of the woods and taught him how to survive in the wild. 

When he told her of his true parentage, she told him of Tamlen. She did not tell him of the ache still acute in her chest, of the feeling of a gaping wound in her side. She did not tell him she could hear his call in the night, because she feared he would tell him it was just a side-effect, just another darkspawn blood-induced nightmare. 

But he looked so solemn, so understanding, so sweet in his awkward attempts to console her that maybe he knew even without her putting it into words. 

\- - -

They met the other clan of Elvhen, whose Keeper had known her parents. Their storyteller, Sarel, told her companions the history of the Dalish, and asked her for her favourite tales. Lyna smiled, and asked him which stories he knew.

He looked affronted and she explained she merely didn't know what stories of her own clan storyteller were theirs and what were shared.

“Did he ever tell you about the Bound?”

“Who is that?”

“Ah, it is not a single person, never a single person. The Bound are lovers joined in by the Creators even before their birth, destined to meet, knowing each other at sight, always connected. They will live their lives as the mated halla – ever united. They move like one and they think like one. And there are stories of the bond transcending even death.”

“What does that mean?” Lyna asked, fascinated. 

“There have been many years since a pair such as this has lived – we do not know. Maybe they talk, even on different planes. Maybe they can visit each other in the Beyond. Maybe they merely go together when the time comes.”

The ache within her heart intensified, and she knew – suddenly she just knew that she and Tamlen were to have been such a pair, had always been such a pair. The recognition had always been there, the sense of connection. But Tamlen was gone, and had not visited her even in her dreams. 

Except... he had been calling for her. Had that been... could that have been real? Could she really hear him from the other side of the Veil? She wanted it to be night, she wanted to sleep, to hear him again, to answer – she prayed to Falon'Din again, because who but the friend of the dead would help her now? He guided the souls to the other side of the Veil – maybe, maybe he could guide them back as well, if only for a visit. 

Seeing Tamlen once would be better than nothing, saying goodbye properly, telling him he was loved. 

Of course he was loved, and she was loved back, because they were Bound, they had always been Bound and they had just been too afraid to speak of what they must have known inside all along – they were meant to be together, even closer than they had been. 

\- - - 

The next time Tamlen came to her it wasn't in a dream, even as it felt like a nightmare. 

They had made camp but weren't yet asleep when she heard him and then saw him – a pale figure, bald and bruised, wearing his armour and face, speaking in his voice, but a ghoul more than an elf.

He called her “lethallan” and she wanted to cry but when she reached for him he ran.

“Don't come near me! Stay away!” 

When she ran after he turned, as if trying to ward her off. “Don't look at me,” he said, more quiet now. “I am sick.”

“We can help you! Tamlen, I was cured.”

“No help for me... too late. I hear... the song, in my head. He sings, and I know I must follow its call – but then... I hear your voice, and I cannot leave.”

So it wasn't just her, the connection they'd always had was still there!

“Don't want to hurt you, lethallan. Please, stop me.”

“I have to try and heal you! Don't leave me, Tamlen.”

“Too far. You cannot help me. Kill me, Lyna. End this. Let me go... in peace... to the Beyond... before the song... overwhelms me!”

“I will not – I will call, I will sing, I will shout so loud I drown the song! I will not let you go now that I have you back! I love you, I love you, I love you, I always did, you were always mine and I was always yours and I refuse to let go, do you hear me?”

She reached out with her hand, and where he had recoiled from her earlier, now he reached back, and the moment they touched his gaze became less haunted, his skin reclaimed a bit of its old hue, and he held onto her like a lifeline.

“Alistair! The Joining ritual saved me, we have to...”

“I don't know how it goes! You know that, I don't know what we need. Besides, it's too late, he's too far gone, you have to see that yourself.”

“No! No, I refuse to let go, I refuse to give up!”

She pulled Tamlen closer into her arms, knowing he wouldn't attack her, knowing she was safe in his arms even here, even now, as safe as she had been when she had leaned on him when learning to walk. 

She raised her head to touch their lips together, unable to resist the urge to feel him like that, for the first time – even if it was also the last. And suddenly she knew what to do.

She had never had any magic – not a smidgen – but this wasn't her, it was them, something older than their physical forms, and as they kissed she pulled the taint from him, that which bound them together stronger than physical, stronger than the taint – stronger than anything living trying to keep them apart.

Even when she could feel the darkness trying to take over she held on, and when she fell, he fell with her. 

\- - -

Lyna was getting used to waking up after fainting to her world changed. First the loss of Tamlen, then becoming a Warden, then losing the army and finding herself alone with Alistair to fight the Blight. 

But this time she woke to a sight of Tamlen asleep by her side, breathing, peaceful – pale and bruised, with no hair, but Tamlen, not a ghoul wearing his face. She had done it. She had pulled the poison from him, the darkspawn taint, with the aid of their connection. Maybe it would make her nightmares worse, maybe it would shorten her lifespan but she would never begrudge the cost if it gave her back her other half.

“You scared me,” Alistair said from beside her, and she tore her eyes off Tamlen to meet his.

It looked like he had been standing guard by them while they were unconscious, and Lyna could guess not everyone was happy with Tamlen being unbound and next to her. Her heart swelled with gratitude to her loyal Warden brother. 

“I'm sorry,” she said, and meant it. She hadn't meant to shut Alistair out but there had been no time for explanations, not that she'd have had words to give them. “I was going by instinct.”

“What was that? I didn't even know it could be done.”

She turned back to look at peacefully sleeping Tamlen and smiled.

“There are stories among the Dalish...”


End file.
